Therapeutic Spellwork
by WeasleySeeker
Summary: Ron and Hermione have their biggest argument yet... and it seems like this time, there's no way past it. Why can't they understand each other?


Hermione ran from the common room, tears stinging her eyes. Ron had made it clear before that he wasn't interested in Hermione, but _Lavender_? He could at least have had the decency to do it somewhere where Hermione couldn't see. He could have had the decency to wait until he and Hermione had resolved their issues before getting off with Lavender.

Maybe she was being unreasonable. There was nothing romantic between her and Ron – who was she to stop him going off and snogging whoever he wanted? But she had been sure there was something unspoken between them. They had been meant to be going to Slughorn's party together, hadn't they? She hadn't _said_ as more than friends, but Ron's reaction suggested to her that he had sensed there was something more behind her invitation.

Of course not. He had the emotional range of a teaspoon.

She didn't really believe that. She knew that he had his own complex emotions buried somewhere deep inside him. But he wouldn't let them out. No matter how hard she tried to coax them into surfacing, she never succeeded.

Now she understood why. He had feelings for _Lavender_, of all people. _He could do so much better_, she thought bitterly. Lavender was just so… mediocre. Ron was special. He deserved someone special, even if it wasn't Hermione. She just wished he had been straight with her. Then she could have moved on. Now, that seemed unlikely.

Maybe they were like oil and water; maybe she had been deluding herself for all those years believing that they could somehow mix. The bickering just got worse and worse these days. He just never knew when to accept that he was wrong. (_Although maybe I'm the same sometimes_, she thought uncomfortably. She didn't dwell on it.)

She thought back to the incident with the Felix Felicis. How on Earth could she have known? He had spent most of the last few months telling her what an awful Keeper he was. She knew it wasn't true, but she also knew that he got awful stage fright. And Harry had _designed_ the trick to deceive her, so of course she had fallen for it. Ron himself had fallen for it. How could he blame her for believing it?

She just didn't know what she had done wrong. She wished she had someone to talk to.

She couldn't really talk to Harry. Ron was his best friend, and he and Ron had a bond that Hermione couldn't even begin to simulate. Besides, this was really one of the times when you needed a girl to talk to. Hermione had always got on well enough with the girls in her dormitory, but she didn't feel that she was close enough to them to discuss something so personal. Besides, talking to Lavender was obviously out of the question on this occasion, and Parvati was her best friend, which would be nearly as bad. She normally discussed things like this with Ginny – she'd told her about Viktor, for example – but Ron was her brother; it would be too weird to talk to her about this.

As always, Hermione sought solace in a deserted classroom. There was nobody there to bother her, and a classroom was a place where she could clear her head and forget her problems, because that was where she would normally excel.

She needed to _do_ something, to stop the thoughts from flooding her brain.

She decided to reconjure those birds from earlier. She focussed, banishing her emotions, and basked in the blissful nothingness. The birds circled her head, twittering cheerfully, not a care in the world. She wished she could be like that again. But everything was getting so _complicated_. Their presence was comforting to her, though. They somehow made her feel less alone.

Harry arrived, bless him, but he wasn't very good with this sort of thing. He just hovered anxiously, unsure of what to say. If she was honest, Hermione wasn't entirely sure what she wanted him to say.

And then they burst in. Ron, and _her_, giggling sickeningly. No. She was being unfair. She didn't resent Lavender for this. Lavender was just lonely and unappreciated. It was Ron who was in the wrong.

A force possessed her. She just wanted all of this to disappear. Things would be so much simpler if Ron just stayed away.

"Oppugno!"

* * *

Ron was sick and tired of being overshadowed all his life. With five extremely talented older brothers and a confident and feisty younger sister, Ron had a lot to live up to, and was always overlooked by his family. And he was best friends with Harry Potter, the Chosen One, the Boy Who Lived. So everyone else overlooked him, too.

It was just his luck to fall in love with the cleverest girl in their year on top of that.

Quidditch. It was one of the only places where he could be better than her, and she still managed to make him feel like he was awful at it. Why did she believe Harry's trick with the Felix Felicis? Wasn't she supposed to be the brightest student that Hogwarts had seen in a long time? Why did she have no faith in Ron? (A tiny voice inside his head piped up, _But you believed it too, Ron._ He ignored it.)

He'd thought maybe there was the slightest chance that she was interested in him. Just maybe. She'd asked him to Slughorn's party, hadn't she? As friends, maybe, but it was better than nothing. They could progress from there. Now, he didn't see them progressing from anything. They were hardly even friends anymore. The fighting just didn't stop; it was even worse than when they were younger. Why did he ever believe that she would notice him? She'd kissed Viktor Krum, an international Quidditch player… she would hardly want to downgrade to someone like Ron, would she?

She thought he had the emotional range of a teaspoon. No matter how much they'd laughed about it, that comment had actually hurt him. He _didn't_. He just… didn't know how to talk about that stuff around Hermione. It felt so weird, because when Harry was trying to figure out his feelings for Cho, Ron was doing the same for Hermione, even if he didn't quite realise it yet.

And Ginny was right – he had no experience of that sort of thing. Even less than Hermione.

Hermione was the only girl he'd ever noticed, ever really _wanted_, discounting his brief crush on Fleur during their fourth year. He loved Hermione; loved the way her face screwed up whilst concentrating, the way she would rush to the library like a child would rush to a toy shop, loved the disapproving looks she would give Ron when she told him off. He didn't understand _why_ he liked those things… he supposed just because they made her _Hermione_.

But things were becoming too much. Everything he did seemed to be wrong for some reason or another and the criticisms were becoming unbearable. He could hardly even look at her anymore. She just made him feel so useless, so _insignificant_.

That was why, when Lavender threw herself at him, he kissed her back.

With Lavender, there was just straight adoration for him. There wouldn't be any of the bickering, the criticism. With her, he wasn't second best. She looked up to him, like he was an idol, and it made him feel good about himself. Even if there was always that guilt stored up and put to one side of his mind. Even if, deep down, he was revolted by what he was doing, how he was using her, how he was betraying Hermione. _(You're not betraying her,_ he told himself. _There's nothing going on between us.)_

"Let's find somewhere quieter, Won-Won," Lavender whispered in his ear; it made his skin crawl, but he said yes.

They entered the nearest empty classroom. Guilt washed over him. There was Hermione, sitting on the floor, looking so weak, so vulnerable, and Harry stood there awkwardly, not knowing what to say to her. Ron admired the beautiful birds: her therapeutic spellwork. She looked broken. She needed him.

Lavender left, gesturing for him to follow, but he stayed rooted to the spot. He tried to find words.

But he was too late.

"Oppugno!"

Ron ran for cover from the innocent creatures that had become something dangerous, destructive. He realised what he was doing to Hermione.

She would never want him now.

* * *

**A/N: This is for the Diversity Competition and Fanfiction's Got Talent, both on HPFC. :)**

**A massive thank you goes to my beta, kci47.**


End file.
